Pakistan Convicts 5 Americans on Terror Offenses

Anti-terror court sentences Virginia men to 10 years
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 24, 2010 5:02 AM CDT
Updated Jun 24, 2010 6:06 AM CDT
Pakistan Jails 5 Americans for Terror Offenses
Deputy prosecutor Rana Bakhtiar is mobbed by the press outside the district jail where five young Muslims from the Washington, DC area are being held in Sargodha, Pakistan.   (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)

Five young Americans accused of traveling to Pakistan to join the Taliban have been jailed for 10 years. A Pakistani anti-terrorism court found the five, aged between 19 and 25, guilty of conspiring to commit terrorist attacks and of funding terrorist organizations, the BBC reports. The men were reported missing by their families after they vanished from their Virginia homes last year

Two of them are Pakistani-Americans, two are of Ethiopian descent, and one is of Egyptian descent. One of the men left behind a farewell video showing scenes of war and saying Muslims must be defended, the AP reports. The men told the court they were there to perform charity work and that they had been tortured by the FBI and Pakistani security forces. Their lawyer plans to appeal to higher courts in Pakistan, which often overturn terrorism convictions.
(More terrorism stories.)

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